Microsoft India is an obscure research entity for Redmond, whereas it has to assume a much bigger role for Microsoft to maintain it’s world dominant status. The reason why I say this is because, Microsoft is taking strong actions against piracy which is a good thing but from what I see it will have a strong impact on Windows’ dominance & it’s sales in the market. Google’s possible Linux distro will only make matters worse. Talking about India only here, Windows is dominant because:

Games

Piracy

It’s presence around the world & subsequent compatibility.

Linux sucks

Mac’s costly & isn’t as games friendly.

Piracy featuring in the list should not surprise you. Be it in small/medium scale companies or homes you will find pirated copies. Unless they are OEM machines, possibility of a legit copy is negligible. The biggest reason for that is cost.

Apple released the Mac Box which will contain iWork 09; iLife 09 & Leopard costing $169 USD, which roughly comes to 7,600/- add tax to it round it to 9,000/- INR. And how much does Windows Vista Ultimate only cost? 10,000/- INR retail at Croma. Outrageously ridiculous pricing.

Why would I want to buy it? Home Premium? Sorry, but I prefer the complete feature full edition. So the cost factor does give you the idea of the apprehensions in the mind of the customer factoring the Vista perceptions it does not help Microsoft’s cause.

And hence, if Microsoft takes stricter actions against piracy, people will not hesitate to try other options. Here is where Google comes into picture.

Slowly & steadily Google has been making headway onto the desktop, Chrome, Google Desktop suite, Google Gadgets, Picasa, Gtalk add to that Google Docs, Gmail. IMHO all Google needs is an OS & they have a formidable desktop force. About time Microsoft started looking at Google as competition beyond the desktop.